Ned Kelly and The Kelly Gang

Ned Kelly is the most (in)famous Australian bushranger. Starting with petty crime, his career progressed through horse theft and cattle rustling and on to murdering police and robbing banks. His gang fashioned armour out of ploughshares in a bush forge, and wore it for a shootout with police at Glenrowan in 1880. Forewarned of ambush by young teacher Thomas Curnow (an under-recognized hero), the police prevailed. Kelly was executed and his last words were, "Such is life." He was 25.

His iconic armour weighed 40kg and significantly impaired movement and vision, but sustained multiple hits without penetration.

Ned wore a grey coat at his final shootout

He has become part of Australian history, either as an idolised Robin Hood figure or a disaffected terrorist- Geoffrey Robertson scornfully calls him 'Jihad Ned'. If you have a "Such is life" tattoo, then I will judge you.

These figures are from Great Escape Games. I painted the armour with Army Painter Gunmetal, then a wash of AP Dark Tone, then a thin wash of Vallejo 73.204 Flesh Wash for a subtle rust effect. The final touch is a 2B pencil for edge highlighting and scratches.

Recommended reading: True Girt 

Gotham City SWAT

I can't wait to get these bad-ass lookin' dudes on the table, and have them and their tacticool gear taken out by murder clowns and bat-freaks.

GCPD SWAT

The basic guys are great generic SWAT figures. I like the lettering on their backs. The visors grew on me- I painted them pale blue-grey, then blended down a Paynes grey, then added white reflection streaks. The mould lines in the photo are killing me- they're not that noticeable in real life!

SWAT

These guys have bomb disposal skillz. I chose orange for their cases as it is a great contrast with blue, and I'm getting better at painting it.

SWAT Specialists

The heavies have non-lethal sticky foam dispensers. They weren't working for me until I increased the highlights around the face, which I maintain is the focal point of any miniature.

SWAT Heavies

Batman Eternal #33 (2015)

Bat-tally 165/ 215 (77%)

GCPD Blue

GCPD

I have a soft spot for the Gotham City Police. They've got no super powers or gadgets, they're (mostly) constrained by the rule of law and the whims of the Mayor, they're targets for supervillains, sometimes they're sent to hunt the Batman, and are a bit of a laughing stock to other police forces because crazy vigilantes do their work for them. I liked Gotham Central (2002-2006), a comic book series about the police where Batman and friends are hardly present.

Cops with handgun

Cops with baton

Commissioner Gordon

I've always liked Jim Gordon, a man thrust into the centre of the Batman's shenanigans. He overcomes corruption in the GCPD and rises to its very head, but somehow can't work out either the identity of Batman or that his daughter is Batgirl. In Year One, an excellent origin story, it is hinted that he has always known about Bruce Wayne but chooses not to let on.

Batman: Year One (1987)

Batman: Eternal (2014-15)

I liked that depiction of Gordon wearing gloves and carried that over. I'm a little concerned my paintjob looks like he's got a Groucho Marx disguise on...

Commissioner Gordon

Bullock and Montoya

Harvey Bullock appears to be a slob, but is a hardworking and loyal detective. He's old-school and not afraid to break the law to get results. His partner, Renee Montoya, is an excellent detective in her own right. She has struggled with homophobia from both her colleagues and her immigrant parents.

Detective Bullock

Gotham Central (2004)

Detective Montoya

Detective Comics (2015)

Major Crimes Unit

Mansions of Madness: Streets of Arkham

I've painted up the figures from the latest Mansions of Madness expansion, Streets of Arkham. The quality of the sculpts has greatly improved compared to the first edition.

First, the investigators. Tommy Muldoon is the rookie cop. He's got something of a young Peter O'Toole going on in his cheekbones.

Tommy Muldoon

Finn Edwards is a bootlegger. His face is great, but didn't photograph well. I tried to paint him carrying a bottle of illicit whisky, which was tricky.

Finn Edwards

Diana Stanley is the former cultist with a heart of gold. Her face is a little featureless, unfortunately. I gave her green details, as most of my Cthulhu stuff has green in it. I quite like how the candle flame and wax look.

Diana Stanley

Marie Lambeau is a jazz singer who learnt about monsters and spells from her grand-mère in the bayou. A lovely sculpted face.

Marie Lambeau

Not all the foes they face are supernatural: the hired guns with their derby hats became some clichéd Irish hitmen under my brush. I enjoyed layering their trenchcoats.

The skeletons are suitably 19th century with their watch chains and waistcoats.

My favourites are the Star Vampires. These are invisible creatures which can be heard faintly tittering, and become visible by being filled up with their victims' blood. They're a chaotic mess of teeth and tentacles- perfect. I based them on 60mm bases.

Star Vampires

Finally, the Lloigor. It is some sort of invisible reptile thing, and I'm not really fond of the sculpt- it is a monster designed by a gaggle of schoolkids. It's got two legs, four arms with claws, four arms with pincers, eight eyes, a pincer on the tail, armour on the back of its neck, floppy looking spines- it really reminds me of the Black Beast of Arrgh! I persevered with multiple thin layers of grey, and am satisfied with the outcome. It's big- I based it on an 80mm mini-disc.

Lloigor

Russian counter-terror troops

Spurred by the imminent arrival of their Chechens, here are more of Eureka's modern Russian Federals, painted as an internal security unit. (Check out my earlier modern Russians here.)

There's no historical support for these paint-schemes and they're not based on any particular unit or time, but they look 'kewl'. The helmet is the Maska-1Sch. I gave the weapons wooden stocks so they would stand out a little more.

AK

AK with grenade launcher

PK MG

RPG-22

Here's a photo-dump of pics I used as inspiration and reference (Google Images is my friend):

Who knows what battle-hardened visages are hidden under that fearsome armour plating?

 Edit: Here's a pic of the boys in action:

15mm 'The Department' figures

Effigy Miniatures- excellent casting and sculpting.

"Rick, show this rookie around. I'm going to chat up that new nightclub singer."

"Vanessa! You're a fembot!"

I see the, well, fat detective as mostly Lieutenant Eckhardt from the 1989 Batman with a little of Blade Runner's Captain Bryant.

 

"Hey, Eckhardt! Think about the future!"

"If you're not cop, you're little people."

I was originally going to have the fabricants in different colours (like the 1990s iMacs!), but went for white instead, similar to the I, Robot and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence films.

I, Robot

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

My cops need transport. Also, my wishlist for future miniatures would have to include a Roy Batty, Pris, Leon, Rachel and Eldon Tyrell. And a GitS range. And I'm going to have to make some roof fans. And a lot of signs. This is why I shouldn't do new periods.